Six things we learned about Ken Finkleman from his interview on CBC’s Q this morning

Ken Finkleman, the creative mind behind CBC hits like The Newsroom and Paramount non-hits like Grease 2, has a new show coming out called Good Dog. So it’s not surprising that he would come to a CBC Radio show like Q to sit and chat with host Jian Ghomeshi. What is surprising, however, is that the two of them almost managed to talk about everything but Good Dog.

1. He doesn’t think comedy needs laughterWe’re tempted to say, “Oh, that explains it.” We always thought of Finkleman’s humour as sort of like The Office’s, but ahead of its time in cringe-but-not-laugh-inducing hilarity. About eight minutes into their talk, Finkleman and Ghomeshi get in to a protracted discussion about comedy that ends with Finkleman cutting it off by saying, “I don’t find this interesting at all.”

2. He’s got more way to say about the media than what was covered in The Newsroom
Hence the new show, which is about the same narcissistic TV producer he played in The Newsroom. And hence the somewhat perplexing turn the interview takes at about the 10-minute mark.

3. He’s not a fan of Christie Blatchford
“She’s an obscenity,” says Finkleman of the Globe and Mail columnist. Before that there was something about throwing scalding water on a baby—frankly, he lost us a little here.

4. He’s a fan of Rick SalutinHe compares the columnist to none other than George Orwell, and the Globe gets a few lashings for letting Salutin go.

5. He’s clearly a Globe and Mail subscriber
Of the four reporters singled out for mentions by Finkleman during this interview, three are Globe columnists (Margaret Wentewas the last one), and the other was sitting next to him in the studio at the time. Not that we expect the Globe to be using this interview as publicity material (see #4).

6. Finkleman has some rather pointed opinions about the Toronto Police ServiceHe calls them “thugs.” When prompted to soften his remarks by the ever-helpful Ghomeshi, Finkleman allows that not all cops are thugs—but that there is a real “thug culture.” Finkleman also decries the funeral for Sergeant Ryan Russell as “police propaganda.” By about the 13-minute mark, Finkleman (maybe seeing his publicist having an arrhythmia on the other side of the glass—we’re not sure) wraps things up by saying, “I went off on a tangent. I apologize.”

6 thoughts on “Six things we learned about Ken Finkleman from his interview on CBC’s Q this morning”

let me spell out the Blatchford comment he made, John Michael…you haven’t noticed Christie attends every shamelessly button-pushing trial, especially when it’s a woman being evil to a man, her child, etc.? Allows her and her bud to perpetuate that “but really, woman are more evil than men” trope, burnishing (in their own minds) their macho bona fides.

I’m not sure what the point of this is. There is some editorializing here but it’s mostly just repeating Finkleman’s points. Is this a summary or an editorial?

Also, Ken doesn’t think comedy doesn’t need laughter. Pretty much everyone does – with the possible exception of the incredulous Ghomeshi. Think about Shakespeare’s comedies — the central function of a comedy in that case is that it ends with people getting married rather than dying. Think about Juvenalian satire. There the central function is that it ridicules social ills. In neither case is it necessary for these comedies to produce laughter. This is beyond a truism. That anyone should find it shocking is what’s really shocking.

Wtf is with people who hold different political beliefs than I do? ARgggh! Everybody’s biased but me! We will never have a functioning democracy until all people have a uniform political philosophy that is coincidently the same as my own.

That interview would be a career-killing rant in some places I guess, but once again, the problem with CBC tv, radio and the self-absorbed guests, hosts and everybody else…..is that they believe that everybody actually knows who they are.